Theory and Practice of Anarchism Professor Ruth Kinna P5

April-May-June 2020 Vol 125 • No 2

The Proceedings of the

Theory and Practice of Anarchism Professor Ruth Kinna p5

The Theory and Death Machines In Response Practice of Anarchism Dr Elke Schwarz Laura Knight and 5 Professor Ruth Kinna 9 13 Adam Ramejkis

Give Peace How Islamism Response to a Chance Perverted Olympism Gavin Esler 17 Olwen Terris 20 A Review 24 David Simmonds EDITORIAL

Research Residency CONWAY HALL ETHICAL SOCIETY at Conway Hall Library Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL www.conwayhall.org.uk Dr Sophia Kosmaoglou Trustees’ Chair: Carl Harrison • Honorary Treasurer: Martin Robbins

Please email texts and viewpoints to the Editor: [email protected]

Staff IN THIS ISSUE Chief Executive Officer As higher education gears up for two more weeks they rely precariously on volunteer labour. Jim Walsh of strikes about pensions, casualisation, workload The focus of my art practice over the last five years has [email protected] Research Residency at 3 Conway Hall Library and pay levels, and independent unions continue been the search for a sustainable alternative. The Arts & Partnerships Manager Dr Sophie Kosmaoglou their campaigns on wages, outsourcing and zero Artuqest Research Residency at Conway Hall Humanist Martha Lee hours contracts, the extent of the reforms that the Library has given me the opportunity to consolidate, [email protected] The Theory and Practice of Anarchism 2010 student protests and occupations were fighting extend and amplify my research on alternative art Finance Manager 5 Professor Ruth Kinna becomes all too clear. education, radical pedagogy and self-organisation. Linda Lamnica [email protected] Death Machines: Artificial Intelligence and The rise in tuition fees was just the start in a coordinated A Co-operative Art School? plan to reconfigure higher education for the market; Under the general title ‘A co-operative art school?’, the Head of Visitor Operations 9 the Ethics of Autonomous Weapons Maggie Nightingale Dr Elke Schwarz lecturers on permanent contracts were given voluntary project is composed of archival research at Conway Hall [email protected] redundancy, a new generation of teaching staff was Library, interviews with co-operatives and alternative art employed on fixed term contracts with twice the workload, schools and participatory action research to crowdsource Visitors Services Assistant In Response: Victorian Blogging staff were outsourced to private companies on zero hours a strategy for a co-operative art school with a survey, Kheira Hadjazi 13 Laura Knight and Adam Ramejkis [email protected] contracts and stripped of their rights, maintenance grants workshops, a festival and exhibition and publications. and bursaries were scrapped, a new ranking system linked It is an extended call for collaborators committed Systems Manager Give Peace a Chance: Conway Hall and course value to employability and student debt. Managers to establishing an alternative model to the capitalist Sid Rodrigues the Peace Movement 17 were employed to oversee this transition and institute an university. [email protected] Olwen Terris auditing culture, close down departments, cut courses By circumventing both the profit-driven private sector Evaluation Officer / Production Editor Ethical Record and commission new buildings. Finally, marketers were and the policy-driven public sector, a co-operative art Deborah Mohanan How Islamism Peverted Olympism: [email protected] employed to promote all this on the strength of university school would provide a democratic form of education, 20 A Review brands and luxury halls of residence. subject to collective decision-making. It would Dr Rumy Hasan Fundraising & Marketing Manager Purged of critique, dissent and scepticism universities reconfigure our understanding of education as a public Jeff Davy are being hollowed out and divested. With underfunded good not through redistribution but as common [email protected] Response to Gavin Esler courses and workshops, aging facilities, ever-shrinking ownership, and our concept of knowledge not as a David Simmonds Marketing Coordinator 24 contact time and bleak prospects in the job market, art product but as a social process. By considering diverse Jordan Mitchell education in particular has been under attack for forms of structural organisation and income generation, [email protected] Obituary decades. It is no surprise that teachers and students are a co-operative art school could build a sustainable Sir Jonathan Miller Venue Hire Managers 26 abandoning academia in search for alternatives. commons-based economy, providing access to shared Carina Dvorak, Brian Biagioni Fuelled by the crisis in higher education, a diverse resources, expertise and training. [email protected] Upcoming Events landscape of alternative art schools has emerged and Through its horizontal structure a co-operative art Operations Coordinator 27 burgeoned into a movement since 2010. A multitude of school would start from the principles of equality and Eva Aubrechtova diverse, experimental and flexible organisations address self-determination to create ethical working conditions. [email protected] the crisis in art education by offering free or affordable It would create alternatives to competitive and art education. Unfettered by rigid ties to funding, policy individualist study and work environments, to encourage Duty Managers Please see the Ethical Record section of conwayhall.org.uk and industry these schools develop new curricula and Ola Gierszynska, Adrian Sobers, Atlas Corsini for regularly updated content, additional articles and trust, long-term commitment and foster collectivity, [email protected], [email protected], also take a look at the online archive, where every issue models of organisation, addressing the unique needs and mutual aid and solidarity in a supportive community of [email protected] published since 1895 is available in digital form. learning styles of individual learners to create subtle but peers, combating anxiety and isolation. significant shifts in art education. Yet apart from notable A co-operative art school would be more than an Maintenance Officer The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society. exceptions like AltMFA, The Other MA and Open School education institution, it would reconfigure art, education Chris Bird Cover photo by Tom Roberts on Unsplash. Registered Charity No. 1156033 [email protected] Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose Charitable Objects are: East, most alternative art schools are short-lived because and work into a way of life. the advancement of study, research and education in humanist ethical principles.

2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 3 THINKING ON SUNDAY LECTURE, 24 November 2019 Conway Hall Library & Archives fertile ground to take root, environmental factors are Nothing could have prepared me for the treasures in the decisive and change produces more change, it emerges Conway Hall Library archives and the intense period of from ideas that make other changes possible. The history discovery and learning during my residency. I wanted of Conway Hall gives me encouragement and teaches me The Theory and Practice of Anarchism to find out how social change happens, how it emerges patience because change is incremental and indirect. through human relationships, how ideas circulate The Festival of Alternative Art Education 2020 will take and spread, how opinions change and how collective place on 21 March 2020 at Conway Hall, bringing Professor Ruth Kinna decisions are made to turn those ideas into action. The together alternative art schools, peer-support groups history of Conway Hall and South Place is in many ways with stalls, workshops, discussions, screenings, tours, a microcosm of the ethical evolution in western society installations, performances, the exhibition The Secret Is over the last two centuries. An intense melting pot of Out: on the theme of cooperation and the launch of ideas, stimulated by dissent, scepticism and freethought. URgh! Zine on self-organised, DIY, peer-led art schools Although I’m fascinated in the leading figures of South and collectives. Place, the evolution of their thought, their vision and influence, my interest lies in the Society itself; the collective that embodied this evolutionary process. The most valuable insight from my research is that change is imperceptible, it does not happen all at once. Ideas need

Anarchism routinely attracts a bad press. The actions of power, he thought Marx’s plan was wrongheaded Dr Sophia Kosmaoglou is an artist, tutor, curator and researcher. Her work of a handful of ‘propagandists of the deed’ shaped because the state was not merely an instrument of class addresses the construction of identity through relationships. Her current practice popular perceptions in the nineteenth century. Tales rule. It was a system of domination which necessarily blurs the boundaries between art, education and activism to question the ontology of these bombers and assassins were not just the divided rulers from ruled. The achievement of of art, its social functions and institutional contexts and to experiment with collective stuff of cheap literature, they styled Joseph Conrad’s classlessness would leave this hierarchy intact. economies and learning environments. depictions of anarchists too. Conrad’s stories of There would be an equality of sorts, but authority intrigue and espionage may now be considered relics would remain. of Victorian culture, but when the Twin Towers were destroyed in Manhattan interest in anarchism soared; a slew of commentaries purporting to “The boundaries between socialists remained show the anarchist origins of Al-Qaeda violence quite fluid for most of the late nineteenth followed. Less dramatic, but equally telling, was the and early twentieth century but two ‘accusation’ recently put to members of Extinction events – the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Rebellion, that the movement was a front for Haymarket Trial of 1887 – became focal Humanist library anarchist activism. points for anarchist organising, sparking the creation of a global network of libertarian

& archives What is Anarchism? socialist movements.” Emergence of a Movement Anarchism emerged as a distinctive current in European socialism in the 1870s when a dispute between Michael Calling themselves ‘anti-authoritarians’, the 10AM—5PM TUESDAY—THURSDAY Bakunin, a veteran of the 1848 revolutions, and Karl Bakuninists branded Marx and his followers Marx, the eventual figurehead of international socialism, ‘authoritarian’ socialists. By the end of the decade, the came to a head in the International Workingmen’s labels had changed. Anti-authoritarians became Conway Hall Humanist Library & Archives is home to a unique collection Association (First International). The intellectual anarchists and Marxists organised as ‘social democrats’. of published and archival sources on humanism and its related subjects. origins of their argument could be traced to an earlier This label stuck until Lenin re-branded social democrats We are open for members, researchers and the general public. dispute between Marx and P-J Proudhon, author of ‘reformists’ and styled revolutionary socialism as What is Property? (1840) who coined the immoral phrase: ‘communism’. Our collections include printed materials such as books, pamphlets ‘property is theft’. But the immediate cause of the The boundaries between socialists remained quite fluid and journals as well as archival material of unpublished institutional rupture was Bakunin’s rejection of Marx’s proposal for for most of the late nineteenth and early twentieth and personal records and papers, such as manuscripts, letters and photographs. the organisation of socialist parties. The scheme was century but two events – the Paris Commune of 1871 and still a twinkle in Marx’s eye, but Bakunin argued that it the Haymarket Trial of 1887 – became focal points for paved the way to the instigation of socialism through the anarchist organising, sparking the creation of a global For your time and convenience it is advisable to contact the library capture of state power. The idea of taking power to end network of libertarian socialist movements. These two before your visit so we can ensure the material you seek is available. class rule was plain daft, Bakunin thought: more likely events also generated a public profile of the anarchist as to result in corruption than transformation. And even if outlaw and radicalised scores of activists designated by it. T: 020 7061 6747 E: [email protected] socialist representatives managed to resist the seductions The Commune was established at the end of the

Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 5 Franco-Prussian war in response to the demand made by slaying of his horse, captured the tenor of Proudhon’s the newly declared national government to surrender critique. In property-regimes, owners could endlessly the city’s guns. Refusing, Parisian workers pursued a extend their estates and just leave them to rot. Their counter-demand for self-government, holding out right also bred a dependency relationship: the well- against the authorities for two months. The resistance being of the property-less rested on their whims. The ended in a bloodbath, the largest European massacre of unfairness of the arrangement was highlighted by the the nineteenth century. Twenty-thousand Communards legal enforcement of the state’s monopoly of violence. are thought to have been executed and hundreds more Workers were designated free agents. They were not imprisoned or deported. They were not all anarchists, subject to their masters’ commands. In fact, they were but the demonisation of Communards as revolutionaries free to sign contracts and workers and employers alike who struggled for self-rule chimed with anti- could expect punishment if either broke the terms of authoritarian politics. their agreements. But the owners always had the upper The Haymarket Affair was a wholly anarchist event. hand in this relationship. They could deny workers’ Following the shooting of strikers involved in a campaign access to their property. They could reduce wages to bare for the 8-hour day in May 1886, anarchists in Chicago subsistence and call out the police if workers went on organised a rally in the city’s Haymarket Square. The strike. detonation of a bomb and the gunfire which followed in Anarchists described the situation of the property-less the panic left seven police officers dead. Police assumed to chattel slavery. Lucy Parsons, a black anarchist who that anarchists were responsible and eight high-profile had been born a slave, argued that the American Civil activists were charged with conspiracy. There was no War had been fought in vain: slavery had not been strong evidence to convict any of them and the abolished it had merely been transformed. In theory, she irregularities of the trial were acknowledged in 1893 was now a free woman, yet she was still dependant on the when the sentences were quashed. But this decision good-will of an employer-master for her survival. Tens of came too late for five of the defendants, four of whom thousands of homeless, starving workers were in the had been hanged and one who had committed suicide same position. while awaiting execution. Moreover, by this time, the Anarchists identified similar relationships of Red Scare that Haymarket had ignited had also dependency in the domestic sphere. Women were accelerated the creation of a libertarian socialist dominated by men just as workers were dominated by movement which characterised all government – liberal employers, though the effects were felt differently: rape or autocratic – as tyranny. in marriage, denial of rights over children, limited access to education and routine disbarment from participation “The resistance ended in a bloodbath, the in public life. And in international relations, too, largest European massacre of the nineteenth European states dominated non-European people in the century. Twenty-thousand Communards are most brutal manner, by turns treating the indigenous thought to have been executed and hundreds population as children and non-human animals. Either way, ‘civilisation’ was said to depend on the enlightened more imprisoned or deported.” masters’ rule.

“Anarchists described the situation of Against Domination the property-less to chattel slavery. Anarchists are sometimes criticised for refusing to Lucy Parsons, a black anarchist who acknowledge the benefits of liberal government. had been born a slave, argued that the This is inaccurate. Anarchists typically admit that American Civil War had been fought in vain: there are significant differences between democratic and authoritarian regimes and that it is possible to slavery had not been abolished it had merely distinguish between forms of government. Their been transformed. In theory, she was now argument is that government entails domination, that a free woman, yet she was still dependant is, the defence of power inequalities, and that this on the good-will of an employer-master shapes social relationships. For Proudhon the defence for her survival.” of private property, enshrined in republican and liberal constitutions, was the most pernicious form of power inequality. It re-enshrined the principle of ‘property to waste’. Dostoevsky’s graphic description of Mikolka, the drunken peasant in Crime and Punishment who repeatedly The violence of the Commune and in Haymarket avows his right of ownership to defend the brutal convinced anarchists that the social transformations

Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 7 THINKING ON SUNDAY LECTURE, 8 December 2019 promised by eighteenth-century revolutionaries in feared, would be obliged to respect communal practices. Britain, America and France had failed to materialise. Communists responded by arguing that their The new constitutional regimes that had been designed arrangements were based on ‘free agreement’. This to replace autocracy had merely institutionalised new meant that decisions would be made directly by Death Machines: Artificial Intelligence and forms of oppression. Anarchists admitted that it was members of associations according to flexible rules that possible to imagine remedial change within these could be adjusted to protect against domination. In other the Ethics of Autonomous Weapons regimes – more liberal labour law and the feminisation of words, communists recognised that some were more family law, for example. But they concluded that the powerful than others but believed that, in the absence Dr Elke Schwarz attempt to legislate for equality would only result in the of institutionalised authority, that unequal powers conservation of prevailing norms, encouraging cancelled each other out. In anarchy, no-one was able permanent struggles for supremacy. Anarchy was the permanently to impose their will on anybody else only solution. and everyone was restricted by the principle of non-domination. Anarchists, Socialists and Llibertarians How has the disagreement been resolved? In practice, Anarchists defined themselves as anti-capitalist anarchists have adopted mixed methods. In the Spanish In 1956, the same year as the term ‘Artificial intelligent systems with lethal capacities. To date, 29 libertarian socialists. While they agreed with Marxists revolution (1936-39) agricultural collectives often treated Intelligence’ was coined, the philosopher Günther countries have agreed to support a global ban. that the abolition of class advantage was a key condition town’s land and machinery as common while allowing Anders tells the story of General Douglas MacArthur, The term ‘Killer Robots’ invokes images of laser-eyed for emancipation, Proudhon’s critique of property individuals to keep some property for themselves. who was relieved of his duties as United Nations Terminators or dystopian drone swarms. The present- highlighted the folly of replacing private ownership commander in the Korean War on account of his day reality of LAWS is much less glamorous, but with state ownership. All the instruments of repression Anarchism Re-evaluated hawkish approach. MacArthur’s decision-making potentially no less terrifying. Crucial here is how the would remain, now deployed to impose the party’s Between 1881 and 1914, anarchists were responsible for capacities were superseded not by a different General AI-enabled autonomous weapons system is always a view of the general good on the proletariat. Anarchist some conspicuous killings. Russian, French, Italian, or team of individuals, but rather by the latest system, composed of software processes and hardware socialism demanded that all the institutions of the state Spanish and US heads of state were assassinated by military technology – a so-called ‘Electric Brain’ that delivery platforms. Take the drone, for example. In April – parliament, judiciary, police, military - be abandoned anarchists. But the reason that anarchism attracts used mechanical calculations to identify the best 2017, the US Department of Defence (DoD) established along with the exclusive right to property. For most a bad press is not because a handful of activists got course of strategic action. the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) anarchists, this meant re-grounding decision making in caught up in a cycle of violence, adopting tactics that to “accelerate DoD’s integration of big data and machine local associations on the model of the Paris Commune, had been perfected by republicans to answer state In recounting the anecdote, Anders expresses strong learning”. The AWCFT, also known as Project Maven, is and building solidarity by federation ‘from the bottom repression. Anarchist violence was rarely associated reservations about the use of such a machine for the DoD’s pathfinder AI initiative and explicitly aims to up’ on the basis of economic equality. with the rejection of tyranny in polite society, though military purposes, arguing that the delegation of make the vast amounts of data collected by drones By the 1880s probably most anarchists identified as some liberals quietly suggested that Czar Alexander II morally significant decisions to computer technology intelligible for speedy action. In concrete terms, this communists and called for all property to be held in had probably brought his assassination on himself. The represented a clear abdication of human responsibility means the AI evaluates video footage, captured by common to prevent anyone from claiming ownership in overwhelming view was that the violence that anarchists (Anders, 2010, p. 60-61). Efficiency, speed, and apparent drones, against the context of a mapped environment, perpetuity. Others advocated for property in use (as committed symbolised a general refusal to be bound by objectivity are not what make decisions moral, and our and provides information about what could or should be Proudhon had called it). Their proposal was to give social norms. Anarchy was, and still is imagined as the excitement about new technologies may actually lead identified as a threat and, potentially, acted on. Until individuals access rights to small plots of land, tools and worst kind of disorder: the abandonment of law, indeed us to lose sight of this. Although Anders was responding 2018, Google was contracted to provide AI expertise for to whatever they produced, facilitating exchange with of all rules. Anarchists argue differently. Rules are part to a much earlier wave of technological innovation, his Project Maven. The technology giant decided not to others. Property would be held as a temporary possession of social life. The imposition of law to defend minority concerns resonate with current debates on AI-enabled renew the contract with the DoD after a number of not a permanent asset. Communists worried that this interests, stifle change and determine the content of autonomous weapons systems. Google employees walked out in a very public protest scheme still posed problems of accumulation and that it morality is the problem. For military-industrial elites, Autonomy in military weapons systems has made over being involved in the development of potentially assumed a culture of competition, too. Some producers as C. Wright Mills called them, the abandonment of law steady progress over the past five years. A number of lethal autonomous systems. At present, Project Maven is would be more efficient than others or have better raw threatens chaos. For anarchists it promises the prospect countries around the globe – including the US, the UK, not intended to act without human supervision, and materials or tools and would be able to enrich of self-rule, replacing government’s trust in ‘the people’ China, and Russia – already possess or are developing certainly not for kill decisions, but it is not a particular themselves. This would give them an incentive to protect with genuine confidence that people can organise their military systems that exhibit certain levels of intelligent stretch of the imagination to foresee how systems like their advantages and resurrect state systems to do so. own affairs by co-operating with others. autonomy, and AI is presently being used across a range these might one day be used without relevant human From the individualist perspective, communism of military applications, including cyber defence, oversight, absent a strict regulatory framework or ban. It smacked of repressive conformity. Individuals, they logistics, medical aid, and missile defence. But above all, is also not difficult to imagine how greater proliferation it is the potential use of AI to create lethal autonomous of such systems might end up supplying rogue actors weapons systems (LAWS) that is raising alarm bells. While with these capacities. The recent increase in drone use by spending on military AI soars, bringing us closer to the militant groups should serve as a cautionary tale. Professor Ruth Kinna is Lecturer in Politics at Loughborough University, UK. point where new technologies are able to select and Advocates of intelligent autonomy stress that it would She is the co-editor of the journal Anarchist Studies and the author of The attack targets without any human involvement, oversight offer substantial benefits, lowering the cost of combat Beginner’s Guide to Anarchism (Oneworld, 2005/2009) and Kropotkin: Reviewing and regulation continue to lag behind. This has become a and providing advantages in speed and efficiency over the Classical Anarchist Tradition (University of Edinburgh, 2016). Her research concern for critics and the public alike. In 2013, a adversaries. The moral case for LAWS often includes the focuses on socialism and anarchism in 19th century Britain. consortium of NGOs founded the Campaign Against argument that superior targeting will result not only in Killer Robots, with the purpose of advocating for a global fewer deaths of military personnel, but also fewer civilian ban on the development and use of autonomous causalities and less friendly fire. We are also told that

8 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 9 problem. This includes thinking about ethical dimensions to the use of force in scientific-mathematical terms. At present, there are a number of well-funded initiatives that seek to unlock the secret to making ‘moral machines’, which would offer an in-built ethical code that ensures that the system could only be used in morally-sound ways. The methodologies associated with this agenda vary, from statistical opinion polls to more complex design proposals, but each assumes that it is possible to find a way to engineer ethics into a machine. This is misunderstanding ethics at a most fundamental level. Making ethical decisions is difficult and should not be sacrificed to the allure of technological progress, speed, and efficiency. Ethics is context dependent and relational. Ethics asks us to make choices that often have no clear solution but instead require that we take responsibility. This is deeply uncomfortable to many and counter to the binary logic of computational systems, but a zone of moral discomfort is essential if we are to prevent technological violence from becoming our primary mode of addressing conflict. Digital technologies, and especially those within which the human is intricately embedded, are seldom just a tool that we employ at will. Rather, they carry a social power. They have the capacity to subtly shape our frames of reference for decision making. In so doing, they exert a powerful – and often invisible – influence over our modes of governance, our security practices, our justifications for violence, and our understanding of ethics as such. As warfare becomes increasingly systematic, through digital networks and algorithmic architectures, we must remember that these architectures might affect our

Photomontage using Predator B Drone landing at Mathis Field in San Angelo (Photo: Jonathan Cutrer, Flickr); bit.ly/PredatorBDrone thoughts and behaviour in important ways, eroding long-held humanistic values and reducing our capacity to autonomous intelligent systems take the erratic, For many, the key to preventing such a dystopian grasped as data. In the context of warfare, where engage properly in ethical deliberation. unpredictable human element out of the equation: scenario is to ensure that for any AI system, there is parameters are likely to be less fixed, more fluid and Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, was attentive to machines don’t suffer from emotional instability, and are always a human in or on the loop to prevent any dynamic, the AI system may suggest a course of action based this problem. In 1960, he wrote: “If we use, to achieve our therefore able to make more clear-headed decisions in catastrophic event from occurring. The term used in the on an epistemic foundation that may be biased, incomplete, purpose a mechanical agency with whose operation we the fog of war. Whether such visions are justified in debates is ‘meaningful human control’. Meaningful or otherwise not fully appropriate to the situation. This will cannot efficiently interfere once we have started it, practical terms is highly contested and opponents raise a human control is an important concept and certainly a become more complex and less intelligible to the human because the action is so fast and irrevocable that we have number of objections to casting technologies of violence step forward in providing a legal basis for regulating mind as techniques in machine learning advance. The not the data to intervene before the action is complete, in humane terms. At the heart of the issue is a moral LAWS. But even if meaningful human control is ability to retain control becomes an even less realistic then we had better be quite sure that the purpose put question of the highest order: is it ethically defensible to established as the ground rule for autonomous prospect when we consider that the main allure of into the machine is the purpose which we really desire have autonomous robots kill human beings without any intelligent systems with lethal capacities, the question is autonomous systems is speed and efficiency. and not merely a colourful imitation of it” (Wiener, 1960, human interference or even oversight? Should we allow what can this possibility mean in the uncertain, messy All these points prioritise a conception of war not as a p. 87). Technology may have advanced since his days, but robots to kill? For those working towards a ban of LAWS, reality of warfare, where the operator is caught in a social and political problem, but as an engineering the concerns remain the same. the answer is a clear no. Such action would breach technological web of digital interfaces and processes. international humanitarian law and violate human Operating an AI-enabled system is not a simple case of dignity, not least because it would be exceptionally command and control. Because such systems entail a Dr Elke Schwarz is Lecturer in Political Theory at Queen Mary University London. difficult to establish accountability and responsibility for number of technological elements, the operator becomes Her research focuses on the intersection of ethics of war and ethics of technology with an emphasis on the ethics of unmanned and autonomous / intelligent errors, accidents, or otherwise unforeseen actions that part of the system, and in particular is reliant on military technologies. She is the author of Death Machines: The Ethics of Violent might harm other humans. Who, in the end, would be information flows produced through AI data analysis. This Technologies (Manchester University Press). held to account? The software designer? The has important implications. If an AI builds a world model commander? The operator? The autonomous intelligent based on available data, it is likely to be much more system itself? successful in closed systems where parameters can easily be

10 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 11 VICTORIAN BLOGGING

In Response

Laura Knight and Adam Ramejkis

It’s often difficult to pinpoint exactly when ideas. Students can find themselves stranded in the gap something starts, or at what point an idea has between their own cultural understandings and the enough form to be recognised as a project. institution’s opaque definitions. The way that critical In Response is such a project. thinking is addressed can often make students feel that some ways of thinking and knowing are more valid than The ‘In Response’ exhibition, which features 22 visual others. Students from the last academic year had been essays from students on the Graduate Diploma Graphic vocal about how much they valued the space the course Design course at Chelsea College of Arts, opened on made to explore these ideas and how it had helped them 30th January in Conway Hall Library and will be on to find their own voice. In response to changes in the display until 31st March 2020. Each essay is a personal design of the course, we recognised the opportunity for critical response to the issues and ideas of different these approaches and ideas to become more embedded. Victorian pamphlets held in Conway Hall’s library This is where the idea for a co-designed and co-delivered collection. Individually, the essays cover issues such as project came into being. feminism, racism, disability, futurism, vegetarianism After further discussion, we realised that this project and speculation, each representing a visual conversation would enable us to work more closely with Siobhan between the present and the past. As a collection, they Britton, Graphic Design Subject Librarian at Chelsea. represent collaboration in response to many different Siobhan collaborated with us on a number of the challenges and opportunities. workshops and in weekly tutorials on the project, We had collaborated on the Graduate Diploma in the bringing her knowledge of libraries and collections but previous academic year. The course is fairly unique in the also her experience as a zine-maker and illustrator. Her way that it brings students from multiple disciplinary and contribution and expertise was invaluable to the process. cultural backgrounds together to study Graphic Design, The project also built on an existing collaboration often for the first time. It’s an interesting opportunity to between Adam and Conway Hall, which started back in push at the edges of what Graphic Design is and could be, 2016. After discovering the library and engaging in and to embrace the value of different perspectives. discussions with Sophie Hawkey Edwards (Library and Graphic Design is often defined and understood as Learning Manager at the time), I recognised the potential of working in response to commercial needs. What graphic exploring the curatedness of libraries and archives to designers do is invariably understood by what they question systems of knowledge. In response, he developed produce and these objects and artefacts are often created facilitated discussions and series of workshops and events in response to the needs of clients. This is an around thinking and language, in relation to the multitude understanding we constantly seek to challenge in our of ideas and ideals represented in the library collection and students, particularly at postgraduate level - to engage championed by Conway Hall Ethical Society. with ideas and thinking beyond the abstract references of At the end of 2017, Conway Hall received support from the traditional art and design canon and beyond the the Heritage Lottery Fund to run Victorian Blogging - a category of ‘commercial’. project that aimed to explore the parallels between the Adam had worked with the Graduate Diploma course format and purpose of 19th Century pamphlets and 21st previously in his role as an Intercultural Communication Century blogs (and zines). In order to make the collection Trainer. Many of these sessions had provided specific more accessible, Conway Hall began to digitise their time and space to consider the value of difference in archive of 19th Century pamphlets. Adam was invited to cultural perspectives and different approaches to critical assist Sophie and Alicia Chilcott (then Digitisation thinking. It is an unfortunate reality that UK Higher Coordinator) in designing and delivering learning Education is often uncritical in the way it defines such activities, and in cataloguing the digitised pamphlets.

12 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Anita Strasser; Photographs: Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 13 These insubstantial, fragile pamphlets represent an aesthetic treasure trove of Victorian ephemera for typographically-minded Graphic Design students. However, and perhaps more substantially, they also provide a record of the enlightened individuals, organisations and movements of nineteenth century Britain, the political and social causes they championed and the ideals they held. In digitising this content, Conway Hall provided a new and very accessible way for Photo: Cheng Meng our students to engage with and respond to it. response to the shadow of the ‘big idea’ in Graphic Design Through a series of workshops, we invited the students education. There’s still a sense among the students that an to draw out some of these historical narratives and idea is something that you must wait for, that design consider their relevance, at this moment in time, to them cannot happen before the idea. In asking them to respond personally. The workshops took place at Conway Hall. In visually, instinctually, we promote the idea that making is a this way, the students’ work was in response not just to the form of thinking, and that some ideas only reveal collection but to the realities of the library space. Our themselves through the process of creating. first workshop, Creative Library Research, explored the The constraints of the workshop produced some idea of serendipity in the context of the Conway Hall interesting results that allowed students to consider their collection. Many of our students later confessed that they own initial responses to the issues and ideas of the didn’t use libraries but preferred to look for content pamphlets. Students had the following comments in online. They also commented that it had never occurred response to the workshop: to them that they would find anything of value to them as designers outside of an art and design library. One “It is a completely different approach to student later reflected on the value of “accepting unusual creating something. It is almost like the brain knowledge as a designer”, highlighting what a different experience it was to find themselves in this space. goes into ‘survival mode’, and it is in that mode We also asked them to explore the library and try to when we start using and discovering skills and decipher what the library was and what its motivations ideas that we did not know we had.” might be. We invited them to consider libraries as curated spaces, representing particular types of “This is definitely a skill that I want to adopt knowledge and bias. We challenged them to consider in future projects as I think it is a very efficient what the value of collections like these might be to a and successful way of expressing ideas and graphic designer. One student wrote the following in response to the workshop: visualising initial thoughts.”

“There is a well-established canon in Graphic Over the following weeks, each of the students developed Design, meaning that practitioners have their ideas into a visual essay. This was an interesting been relying on the same literature, same format for them to work with. Visual essays differ from conventional essays in that they use sequences of images biases, and the same people in the past. The to communicate a critical position rather than words. consequence of such behaviour is that graphic Students were asked to produce a publication in response design risks becoming repetitive and that it to their pamphlet using 10-12 images and up to 500 keeps reflecting ideas and styles that are no words. The results were beautiful and surprising. The longer relevant nor accurate. Hence expanding essays were as varied as the students in terms of format, our research resources from Graphic Design approach and ideas, even in response to the same pamphlet. Responses to The Man From the Moon, for books to humanistic literature, which critically example, ranged from a paper wallet of ‘moon money’ to reflects societal processes and issues, can only a risograph-printed visual poem. add value to our work.” For the exhibition, the essays were classified using the Dewey system and placed back into the Conway Hall We followed up this workshop with a zine-ing workshop. collection in their relevant sections. Yellow shelf cards Each student chose a synopsis of a Victorian pamphlet and were the only clue as to their location. This produced a zine in response. The approach in this contextualisation was a specific choice in response to the workshop was familiar to our students as throughout the all-too-often de-contextualistion of objects in Graphic course we constantly encourage them to respond visually Design exhibitions. Graphic Design is never without - to make their thoughts visible. We adopt this approach in context. This approach at first confused visitors to the

14 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Davy. Jeff Photos: Anita Strasser; Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 15 CONWAY HALL

Give Peace a Chance: Conway Hall and the Peace Movement

Olwen Terris

From Moncure Conway to Yoko Ono Conway Hall has always been a place where peace activists gather to campaign, agitate and perform, in the expectation that their audience, if not in complete agreement with their views and strategies, will be engaged, committed and tolerant.

Two Nobel Peace Prize winners and one three-times Photos: Anita Strasser nominee have spoken here. Journalist, author and Labour MP Norman Angell delivered the 4th Conway exhibition. After wandering around for 10 minutes one are some interesting ways that the theme of In Response Memorial at South Place Institute on March 1913; his text visitor then shyly asked where the work was, and was continues. Students from the BA Graphic Design at was ‘War and the Essential Realities’. Angell’s seminal subsequently delighted when they realised that they Camberwell spent some time in the library producing work The Grand Illusion (1910) – the inspiration for Jean needed to look through the shelves and the other books zines in response to the essays. A group of Graphic Media Renoir’s 1937 film - analysed the nature of war, in the collection to find the work. Essays were viewed in Design students from LCC dropped by to view the essays concluding that the danger of mutual destruction of both the context of other books dealing with the same topic, in preparation for their own visual essays. Members of aggressors and defenders had made armed conflict allowing visitors to experience the often curious range of the public have contacted us to ask if the essays will be unprofitable. Angell was awarded the Peace Prize in 1933 titles and subjects that the Conway Hall Library collection available digitally; they want to share them with people in recognition of the impact of The Grand Illusion and his deals with. who are not able to visit the exhibition before it closes in work for the League of Nations. On the opening night, people were free to peruse and March. Educators have asked if we will run similar Mairead Corrigan co-founded the Northern Ireland spend time with the collection. People would often projects and workshops for them. Students have asked Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace cluster in sections where multiple students had when we will be working with Conway Hall next... People). In 1976 she was the winner of the Nobel Peace responded to the same pamphlet. For example, five These are all questions that we must consider our Prize (shared with Betty Williams) for working to a students had produced essays in response to The Fruits of responses to. As we’ve said, it’s often difficult to pinpoint resolution of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Philosophy by Charles Knowton. exactly when something starts. Perhaps the challenge we following year she gave a Sunday Lecture with the title Give Peace a Chance - Bertrand_Russell_1957 – Wiki Commons.jpg For many students, the opening night was the end of didn’t anticipate with this project has been deciding if, ‘Making Peace’. the process - an opportunity to come together and when and how it ends. Dr Scilla Elworthy is a peace campaigner and founder objectors, both were imprisoned for their beliefs. Russell celebrate the achievements of the term. However, there of the Oxford Research Group, a non-governmental spoke to the Conway Discussion Circle on ‘The Pacifist organisation set up in 1982 to develop effective dialogue Campaign’ on November 23 1937, arguing that ‘in the between nuclear weapons policy-makers and their circumstances of modern war you are never likely to Laura Knight is a graphic designer and course leader for the Graduate Diploma critics, work for which she was nominated three times for secure any end we think desirable by means of a large war’. Graphic Design at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. the Peace Prize. In 2017 she lectured at Conway Hall on Lord Brockway spoke at Conway Hall many times ‘The Business Plan for Peace: Making Possible a World including addresses on humanism, the Levellers and Adam Ramejkis works at University of the Arts London, running workshops, Without War’. Diggers and his 75 years in politics. An extract from his seminars and projects for staff and students on criticality, creativity, communication and collaboration. He has also run workshops and events in Conway Hall Library Bertrand Russell and Fenner Brockway are perhaps the autobiography 98 Not Out beautifully illustrates his moral exploring the links between thinking and language. best known peace campaigners to have had strong strength and compassion: “I have an extraordinary sense associations with Conway Hall; both were conscientious of freedom in owning nothing. I give all I receive above

16 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 17 present to join the Committee in its civil disobedience protests against the nuclear bomb. Many artists and musicians have found their way to Conway Hall to perform. One such was Crass, an art collective and punk rock band formed in 1977 who promoted anarchism as a political ideology advocating peace, direct action, animal rights, feminism, anti- fascism and environmentalism. The band has also claimed credit for revitalising the peace movement and the CND in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They played at Conway Hall several times and on one such gig in September 1979 (notorious in punk history) Social Worker Party supporters and other anti-fascists attacked British Movement neo-Nazis in the Main Hall. From Steve Ignorant of Crass: “We went to the gig and there was a lot of rumours going around that the British Movement were turning up. As usual! We got that at every gig. I remember being backstage and this roar went up. All of a sudden there’s this full-scale battle going on and all I could do was watch from the stage – I didn’t know who was thumping who.”2 The Sunday Concerts at South Place Chapel continued Give Peace a Chance - Yoko Ona - Wiki Commons throughout World War I boosting morale and fostering a sense of normality. There was a rise in composers archives holds correspondence from local branches commissioned from allied countries and national particularly from the Industrial Sub-Committee based in concerts dedicated to the Italian, Russian and French London and the London Branch; these include repertoire. membership records from the many trades unions who The Conway Hall Library is of course a rich resource for joined the group. The papers include letters organising research into peace studies ranging from George W. sit downs at USAF bases, factory gate demonstrations, Foote’s 1887 pamphlet The Shadow of the Sword, a chilling rallies at various venues and references to the and perspicacious account of the ‘feverish’ political Aldermaston Marches. Of equal interest are reports on situation in Europe where neutral states “tremble” and demonstrations – such as an anti-Vietnam War rally in “all Christendom is armed to the teeth”, to the political, Trafalgar Square in 1966. A large file of newspaper philosophical and ethical debates of today. cuttings reporting the Ban the Bomb and anti-Vietnam The final reflections on Conway Hall and peace must demonstrations is extremely valuable as unique primary rest with Moncure Conway himself, the very last words the average wage in Britain to the peace movement”.1 A Conway Hall has given a platform to the Campaign’s material for research on media coverage of the 1960s from his very last book: “Entreat for peace not of deified statue (Brockway) and a bust (Russell) in Red Lion Square leaders and opened its buildings for its administrative protests. There are reports of arrests and trials including thunderclouds, but of every man, woman and child thou commemorate these men and rooms in Conway Hall are meetings, conferences and AGMs. Bruce Kent, Vice- the arrest and fining of actor Vanessa Redgrave. shalt meet. Do not merely offer the prayer “Give peace in named in honour of their distinguished and untiring President and Kate Hudson, General Secretary have both In May 1962 a Conway Discussion took place on the our time”, but do thy part to answer it. Then though the efforts to promote peace and understanding. spoken here. Peace activist Pat Arrowsmith, one of the principles and policies of the Committee of 100; the Hall whole world be at strife, there shall be peace in thee, Conway Hall has in more recent times continued its original signatories of the Committee of 100 and co- was full. The debate was led by D.E. Lock standing in for Farewell”.3 commitment to commemorating conscientious objectors organiser of the first Aldermaston March, spoke in 1976 Michael Randle. Randle, a peace campaigner and known hosting in 2016 Comrades in Conscience, a presentation by on ‘The Case for Civil Disobedience’ and in the same year for his role in helping the Soviet spy George Blake escape References Michael Mears marking a hundred years since the wrote in the Ethical Record as part of Conway Discussions from a British prison, was unable to give the address as 1. Brockway, Fenner 98 Not Out. London: Quartet Books, 1986. 2. Berger, George The Story of Crass. London: Omnibus Press, 2009. introduction of compulsory conscription in the UK. In on ‘Protest in Action – Northern Ireland-Troops Out’. advertised as he had that day received a prison sentence 3.Conway, Moncure. Autobiography – Memory and Experiences of Moncure Daniel Conway. October 2015 Dr Sharah Ali, formerly Deputy Leader of Arrowsmith was imprisoned eleven times for her political under the Official Secrets Act. The talk urged those Vol. II. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1904 the Green Party, gave a Thinking on Sunday talk entitled activities. ‘How is Gandhi and Non-Violence Relevant to Politics The Committee of 100 was a British anti-war group set Today? Using Gandhi’s teachings as inspiration, Dr Ali up in 1960 with a hundred signatories of opinion makers Olwen Terris worked at the British Film Institute, National Film and Television addressed the question of whether violence can co-exist and activists including Pat Arrowsmith and John Berger: Archive in the role of Chief Cataloguer for thirteen years before moving to with non-violence as part of an all-embracing account of Earl Russell was president. Its supporters used mass the Imperial War Museum, Department of Collections Management as Data political action. non-violent resistance and civil disobedience to achieve Standards Officer. She has been at Conway Hall since 2012 where she started The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was their aims and was the first major example of mass as a volunteer cataloguer and has catalogued the Library’s nineteenth century founded in 1957 with Canon John Collins as Chairman peaceful civil disobedience used as a method of pamphlet collection. and Bertrand Russell as President. Since that time disruption and campaigning in Britain. Conway Hall

18 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 19 BOOK REVIEW

How Islamism Perverted Olympism

Dr Rumy Hasan

A Review of How Islamism Perverted Olympism by acting in favour of Muslim athletes, they in fact played Annie Sugier, Linda Weil-Curiel and Gerard Biard, into the hands of theocratic regimes imposing on women (translated from French by Bernice Dubois) a second rate status and bodily invisibility in the public Chryseis Editions, 2018. space”. Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, and rule by an Something that has long gone beneath the radar of global Islamic theocracy, women in all walks of life – including sport is the rampant sexism of some, invariably Muslim in sports – have been compelled to cover themselves from majority, countries with respect to the Olympic Games head to toe, a profoundly oppressive practice. Thereafter, and which has long been tolerated by the guardians of other Muslim countries – albeit to varying degrees – the games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). followed suit. Whereas previously, women athletes from As late as the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Annie Muslim countries wore the standard outfit – usually Sugier, Linda Weil-Curiel and Gerard Biard point out in shorts and t-shirts – this changed to hijabs and full this translation of an edition first published in French leggings to ensure their “modesty”. The authors are in 2017 that teams from 35 countries were comprised forthright in their denunciation of this turn of events by solely of men. This is an indicator that girls and women asserting that “we must confront regimes that impose on were denied encouragement, support, and facilities to women rules that are incompatible with the principles of pursue sports at a high level, in other words, institutional equality and of non-discrimination set forth in the gender discrimination was/is likely to be the reality in Olympic Charter. Otherwise, the risk is great of losing these countries. More than that, until the 2012 London what is left of universal values on which Olympism was Games, some countries did not select women as a matter founded”. of policy. The IOC had taken a principled stance in banning The IOC was compelled to take action when it South Africa because of its policy of racial apartheid and threatened Brunei, Qatar and Saudi Arabia from the authors wish the same for countries such as Iran and exclusion of the 2012 Games if they did not select women Saudi Arabia on the grounds of gender apartheid. As to their delegations: religious or cultural reasons for such writers and activists from France, they are campaigning a brazen sexist policy were deemed inadmissible. and petitioning the IOC and the Paris organisers to firmly Moreover, the IOC refused to change the date of the adhere to the Olympic Charter at the Paris Games games so that it did not clash with Ramadan. It tasked a scheduled for 2024. special representative (Lassana Palenfo, former sports But they face an uphill struggle given the hitherto minister of the Ivory Coast) to study this question: she tolerance shown by the IOC and other sporting bodies to Basketball 3x3 Girls Preliminary Round: Hungary vs. Islamic Republic of Iran (22:0) at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics firmly declared, “The Games are apolitical and the Islamic attire. Furthermore, they and their Credit: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 irreligious. If we yield now, the Buddhist, the Jews will sympathisers are faced by the full might of Organisation also ask for special arrangements”. All this was a positive of Islamic Cooperation countries who push for Islamic step forward and, importantly, in accordance with the exceptionalism in not just sports but in other aspects of participate. This flagrant accommodation to women’s saddening photos of women participants from Iran Olympic Charter which states that “No kind of life. Moreover, they are assisted by Muslim organisations oppression must be rejected along with the religious before the Islamic revolution of 1979 and from Turkey demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda in the west, with support from western fellow-travellers, dogma that justifies the veiling of women and, ipso facto, before the rise of the AKP Party. The most oppressive is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas” who rigorously campaign for Muslim women to express second-class status given that boys and men are not country for women, Saudi Arabia, did not permit women (Rule 50 [2]). their religion in sporting activities. Indeed, it is fair to say required to veil themselves. to compete. Yet, despite these advances, in regard to the sports that western governments and civil society at large – Indeed, in the past, women from Muslim-majority The push for this exemption stemmed from the attire worn by some Muslim women competitors, veiling including feminist groups – have accepted the specious countries participated in sports events both at home and Women, Sports and the Challenge of Change conference is permitted which is in clear breach of Rule 50[2]. The argument that unless Muslim women are granted in international tournaments in the standard attire; held in 1994 in Brighton, UK that was attended by 280 authors make the point “Perhaps seeing themselves as exemptions with respect to sporting attire, they will not there was no question of veiling. There are striking and delegates from 82 countries. As part of the Brighton

20 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 21 BECOME A MEMBER • SUPPORT OUR WORK Declaration, the following recommendation was facilities, equipment and dress options taking into account provided: both ability and cultural specificities, particularly for women and girls. Those responsible for sport … should ensure that an equitable This was a factor in UNESCO changing its 1978 Charter: range of opportunities and learning experience, which where physical education and sport were characterised accommodates the values, attitudes, and aspirations of girls, as the “universal language” to “the universal principles is incorporated in programmes to develop physical fitness set out in the present Charter”. But the only new and basic sport skills of young people. principle in the revised Charter is the reference to At the Women, Sports and Islam workshop, led by “cultural diversity” which directly contradicts universal Muslim countries, especially Iran, an explicit language. recommendation is made designed to overturn Rule The organisations of the world’s most popular sport, 50[2] and similar rules by other sports federations: football, also began to retreat from their hitherto universal principles. In 2014, the International Football Lobbying of relevant national and international sports Association Board (IFAB), which has the sole authority for organisations needs to take place regarding rules and the laws of the game, authorised the wearing of the hijab regulations of international competitions so that these are and turban in football. However, there was a comical inclusive rather than exclusive. This specially relates to outcome of this rule change: in September 2015, Barney dress where strict rules and regulations may exclude Muslim Henderson of The Daily Telegraph reported that eight women. (sic) of the Iranian women’s football team were men! The Islamist bandwagon designed to subvert the norms Despite the fact that they play in hijabs, long-sleeved tops relating to sports attire had begun to roll in earnest and and tracksuit bottoms, this brazen deception could not with considerable success given that very little resistance be fully concealed. was provided. The next decisive step in this endeavour The authors highlight the demeaning status of girls and took place at a seminar organised by the Sultan Qaboos women in Muslim-majority countries that have been at University in Oman with delegates from Muslim and the forefront of demanding exemptions to the dress code western countries. A Declaration Accept and Respect in sports for women in international competitions – to asserted: replicate what they impose at home. This has given encouragement to Muslims in the west to do the same We urge international sport federations to show their and with much success as, fearful of being charged with commitment to inclusion [of Muslim women and girls] by racism and Islamophobia, the authorities meekly ensuring that their dress codes for competition embrace succumb to their demands. Hence, with barely a Conway Hall is Where Ethics Matter and hosts a wide variety of talks, concerts, exhibitions, courses, Islamic requirements, taking into account the principles of murmur, the veiling of girls and women in sports propriety, safety and integrity. performances, community and social events. activities has also become prevalent in western countries. The authors point out that this was the first explicit The authors also level a powerful charge against We curate, support and facilitate people and ideas that make ethics matter in the world and for nearly a restriction of the freedom of sportswomen labelled as western academics in particular who thought they were hundred years Conway Hall has been home to Britain’s bravest thinkers and boldest social movements. Muslim – and which the westerners endorsed. By so being helpful to Muslim women by bowing to the doing, they supported the most regressive theocratic demands of these dictatorships arguing that they bear a Our building is owned by Conway Hall Ethical Society, an educational charity whose object is the advancement regimes whose laws and policies degrade women. heavy responsibility in having contributed to putting of study, research and education in humanist ethical principles. The Society itself programmes up to 150 Indeed, the stance of westerners on not only this issue aside the rule of neutrality, that is, universalism and events per year including Thinking on Sunday, Sunday Concerts, Learning courses, art exhibitions, poetry and but in general when it comes to religious groups has been equality, in sport. literature events, as well as collaborations with like-minded charities and community groups. characterised by a robust cultural and moral relativism. If the Paris 2024 Games are to re-impose the Olympic The culmination of this lobbying was that at the Charter, then this will necessitate considerable and We are an independent charity and receive no funding from the government. Everything we do is dependent London 2012 games, 17 countries had women contestants effective campaigning and persuasion. Doubtless Annie upon our commercial activity and the generosity of members and supporters like you. in Islamic attire in clear breach of Rule 50[2]; a great Sugier, Linda Weil-Curiel and Gerard Biard will be victory for Islamists and theocratic regimes. The die had relentless in pursuing this principled – and truly Join us to support our work and enjoy a range of benefits: been cast and pressure was applied to other sports progressive – stance. However, they will need support not federations and politicians to follow suit. Political success only from allies in France but also in Europe and from • Free entry to our Thinking on Sunday talks series was garnered at the 5th World Conference of Ministers across the world if they are to succeed. Their short book • Cheaper entry to the Sunday Concerts and other events and High Ranking Officials of Physical Education and is excellent in drawing attention to this important yet • Discounted fees for our courses and those from London School of Philosophy Sport held in Berlin in May 2013. This yielded the Berlin neglected reality and ought to be followed up in the • Access to our archives and Library for book loans Declaration that stressed: English-speaking world with similar interventions on the subject. • Quarterly digital edition of the Ethical Record The importance of gender mainstreaming that is guided • Vote at the AGM, guide our future (except Friends) by the concepts of diversity, freedom of choice and Dr Rumy Hasan is a senior lecturer at the University empowerment when undertaking efforts to increase the of Sussex and Visiting Professorial Research Fellow at Membership fees per year: participation of girls and women in and through sport … the Civitas Think Tank, London. Standard: £55 • Unwaged: £40 • Friend: £30 to ensure, in accordance with national law, appropriate To join, go to: 22 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 conwayhall.org.uk/membership Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 23

20200304 Membership advert for ER.indd 1 05/03/2020 08:48 RESPONSE

Response to Gavin Esler

David Simmonds

Gavin Esler writing in the article “Brexit Without the Bull” leaving the EU is stronger now than it was then, given the in the Winter 2020 Ethical Record (Vol 125 (1)) questions EU’s stated objective of increasing federalism. I love whether there are any EU laws at all which this country Europe, but love the rest of the world too – it is the EU is forced to abide by against its will. There are many. I that I’m not too fond of. remember protesting many years ago against the cruel Mr Esler finds examples of dishonesty in the Brexit practice of exporting live lambs for slaughter in Europe. camp, and draws parallels between this and Holocaust The Labour government wanted to ban the practice, but deniers such as David Irving. I think this is over the top. the EU said “No”. More recently Michael Gove, as Minister Of course there was dishonesty in the Brexit campaign, for Agriculture, expressed frustration at being prevented but this was easily balanced by the dishonesty on the anti- from imposing the ban. Brexit side. George Osborne said that he would have to I also remember a Labour government being told that tear up the Conservative manifesto promises with an the commercial growing of any GM crops, even proven emergency budget within weeks of a leave vote. Such a safe ones, such as wheat, was not allowed under EU law. budget turned out not to be necessary. Many of the other (In 2013 over 60% of British farmers said that they wanted Remain ‘experts’, including Mark Carney and George to grow GM crops). Some years ago the government was Soros, also prophesied with considerable publicity that prevented by the EU from scrapping the hated “tampon the consequences of a leave vote would be dire tax” (VAT on tampons) and also from scrapping VAT on and immediate. They were neither dire nor immediate. I domestic fuel. The ECJ also ruled that doctors sleeping in would argue that such prophesies of doom were not just hospitals but being on call, had to be paid full time; mistaken, but dishonest. Economists surely knew that which contributed a lot to staff shortages in the NHS. such predictions could not safely be made. The big lie on The nationalisation of the train system would be an the Brexit side was the assertion on the side of a bus that infringement of the EU’s “Fourth Railway Package” (2012), £9 billion a year would be freed for the NHS. However, which now requires governments to open up train almost every time I turned on the radio or TV this lie was, services to the markets. If Corbyn had become PM he quite rightly, being exposed for what it was. would have found it extremely difficult to deliver on his Another argument used by the Remain side to block pledge. Brexit or to have a second referendum was that the There are numerous other examples. Whether one electorate did not understand the ins and outs or the agrees with some of these EU laws or not is beside the implications of Brexit. Many didn’t it is true. But the point. Many EU laws are good. But it should be up to our goalposts (accepted by almost everyone) were clearly laid elected governments to decide, not a group of unelected down at the beginning, and after five months of bureaucrats. Even if we accepted these laws 20 or 40 campaigning and arguing, you cannot then tell the years ago, does this mean that we must be stuck with electorate: “you were too ignorant to know what you European Court of Justice. Photo by Cédric Puisney. them forever? were voting for, and the result is therefore invalid”. This Mr Esler may be too young to remember Tony Benn’s is more characteristic of dictatorships. The same applies seeming determination of a majority of MPs to frustrate pledge. Is this an example of what Mr Esler refers to as tests of democracy. (He was pro Brexit till he died I to the other arguments, such as “the young were not Brexit at every turn was then bringing Parliament into “negation”? believe). If people have power over you, you should ask properly represented”, “the Brexit majority was only a even greater disrepute than was already the case. A large The main Liberal-Democrat slogan then became “Stop them certain questions such as “who put you there? To small one” etc. You cannot change the goalposts after the majority of MPs had said that they would accept the Brexit”, which for me made them neither liberal nor whom are you accountable? How can I get rid of you” and event. result. The vote to trigger article 50 was won by a democratic. Surely the word “liberal” implies, in any so on. If the answers include: “I am accountable to The government’s promise at the time of the majority of 6:1. It was only when the Labour Party saw democratic exercise, an acceptance of the result. When no-one, and no you cannot get rid of me” then we have a referendum was that the result would be respected, and that it could make life extremely uncomfortable for the those who lose do not accept that they have lost, I think it problem with our democracy. I believe that the case for that “there will; not be another referendum”. The government that they decided to forget about their sets a dangerous precedent.

24 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 25 OBITUARY FORTHCOMING EVENTS AT CONWAY HALL EXHIBITIONS — 25 April ‘The Secret is Out’ Exhibition Sir Jonathan Miller THINKING ON SUNDAY 1934—2019 5 April 15:00—16:30 Display It Like You Stole It: Museums and Ethics • Alice Proctor 19 April 15:00—16:30 Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power • Lola Olufemi 3 May 15:00—16:30 Murdoch: The Man Who Owns the Media • Tom Roberts PARTNERSHIPS 21 May 17:30—21:30 International Bee Day 14 June Afternoon, TBC Truth to Power Café COURSES 3 May 13:00—17:00 Conway Hall & Humanists UK: World Press Freedom Wikithon CONCERTS 6 June 18:00 United Strings of Europe Concert TALKS 8 April 19:30—21:00 Reweirding: The Alchemy of Us – How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another • Ainissa Ramirez 15 Apr 19:30—21:30 London Fortean Society: Shapeshifters – A History • John B. Kachuba 20 Apr 19:30—21:00 Ethical Matters: Split – Class Divides Uncovered • Ben Tippet 18 May 19:30—21:00 Ethical Matters: No Visible Bruises — What We Don’t Know A man of far-ranging talents, Sir Jonathan Miller was best Miller was a committed atheist and humanist and about Domestic Violence can Kill Us • Rachel Louise Snyder known as a theatre and opera director, actor, author, sought to explore the history of atheist thinking and its television presenter and humourist. He was also a positive impact on society, as well as the roots of his own Events subject to alteration • For current information and tickets see conwayhall.org.uk medical doctor and would likely have become a leading atheism, leading him to write and present the television neurologist, had he not risen to prominence for being series Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, which aired on part of the groundbreaking satirical show Beyond the BBC Four in 2004. Additional conversations, debates and Fringe, with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. discussions from the series also later aired in a six-part He was born in 1934 into a Jewish family and grew up series The Atheism Tapes. in St John’s Wood, London. Interested in the biological As well as being President of the Rationalist Association sciences from an early age, he studied natural sciences and a patron of Humanists UK, Miller had ties with and medicine at St John’s College, Cambridge, and went Conway Hall and took part in two Conway Memorial on to train at University College London, qualifying as a Lectures. He chaired the 1972 lecture on ‘Humanity and medical doctor in 1959. For the next two years he worked Animality’ along with Sir Edmund Leach, where Miller as a hospital house officer, but began work on Beyond gave the introduction. The following year he gave the the Fringe in 1960 as one of the writers, performers and Conway Memorial Lecture on ‘The Uses of Pain’, chaired producers, launching his career in the world of arts and by Peter Cadogan.1 He was also interviewed in the Library entertainment. in 1993 as part of the events marking the foundation of He worked on the show for two years, but left in 1962 South Place Ethical Society (now Conway Hall) in 1793, following its move from the West End to Broadway, going and in 1972 he chaired a debate on Darwinism. on to become the editor and presenter of the BBC TV arts Miller died on 27 November 2019 aged 85, after programme Monitor. He wrote, produced and directed a suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and is survived by his BBC film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 1966, and an wife, Rachel, and their children, Tom, William and Kate. adaptation of an M. R. James ghost story, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, in 1968. In the 1970s he began directing and Dr Deborah Mohanan producing operas, and in the early 1980s he produced 12 1 The transcripts for these Conway Memorial lectures are on Conway Hall’s website: Shakespeare plays for the BBC. bit.ly/1972Lecture; bit.ly/1973Lecture.

26 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 27 January 12th 6.30pm Highgate Festival Musicians HAYDN • SIBELIUS • BEETHOVEN BRAHMS • SCHUMANN 19th 5.30pm Robert Hugill • FREE PRE-CONCERT TALK 6.30pm Maria Canyigueral & Lana Trotovšek BEETHOVEN 26th 6.30pm The Oriole Ensemble MESSIAEN • HINDEMITH February 2nd 5.30pm Paolo Rinaldi • FREE PRE-CONCERT RECITAL 6.30pm Noûs Quartet WEBERN / BEETHOVEN 9th 6.30pm Simon & Raphael Wallfisch, Edward Rushton BRAHMS • SCHUMANN 16th 6.30pm Gould Piano Trio MOZART • KORNGOLD • BRAHMS 23rd 5.30pm Robert Hugill • FREE PRE-CONCERT TALK 6.30pm Lydia Shelly & Nicolas Stavy BEETHOVEN • BRAHMS • SHOSTAKOVICH March 1st 6.30pm Tippett Quartet & Héloïse Werner RAVEL • WALEY-COHEN POULENC • DEBUSSY 8th 5.30pm Royal College of Music Musicians • FREE PRE-CONCERT RECITAL 6.30pm Simon Callaghan & Friends BEETHOVEN 15th 6.30pm Solem Quartet BRAHMS • REEVES • BEETHOVEN 22nd 6.30pm Phacelia Ensemble STRAVINSKY • MOZART • BRAHMS 29th 6.30pm Ruisi Quartet BRITTEN • MENDELSSOHN • WEBERN • BEETHOVEN April 5th 5.30pm Robert Hugill • FREE PRE-CONCERT TALK 6.30pm Trio Khnopff SCHUMANN • BRAHMS • SHOSTAKOVICH • WEINBERG 19th 6.30pm Galliard Ensemble & Simon Callaghan STRAUSS • THUILLE BEETHOVEN • POULENC 26th 6.30pm Piatti Quartet BEETHOVEN May 3rd 5.30pm Royal College of Music Musicians • FREE PRE-CONCERT RECITAL 6.30pm Simon Callaghan & Friends BEETHOVEN 10th 5.30pm Robert Hugill • FREE PRE-CONCERT TALK 6.30pm Robert Max BACH 17th 5.30pm Royal College of Music Musicians • FREE PRE-CONCERT RECITAL 6.30pm Zoffany Ensemble SCHUBERT • BEETHOVEN 24th 6.30pm United Strings of Europe & Simon Callaghan BEETHOVEN • RODGMAN 31st 6.30pm Trio So–ra HAYDN • RAVEL • MENDELSSOHN June 7th 6.30pm Oculi Ensemble MOZART • WEBERN • BRAHMS

28 Ethical Record | Spring 2020 | Vol 125/2 conwayhall.org.uk conwayhallsundayconcerts CHSunConcerts CHSunConcerts conwayhall.org.uk/sunday-concerts 1